Gailbraithe's page

Have either of you actually played Hot Chicks? I haven't (never even heard of it before this thread), but all of the reviews I've read are pretty positive. Seems to have decent mechanics with some interesting meta-game elements. The worst things I can find anyone saying is that the setting/concept is derivative of Macho Women With Guns.

The Fisher's Roost castle is really neat, I like how small it is. It'd make a great map for a remote wizard's tower.

Thanks for sharing!

This is genius and I'm stealing it.

You should be aware that brass is really overselling the ease with which copper can be used for these kinds of purposes. The examples he gives that require melting really aren't really feasible, especially if your GM knows anything about metallurgy. Copper has a melting point around 1900̊ F (higher even than silver), which isn't an easy temperature to reach in most dungeon type settings -- for example, a fire built in a fireplace (at its hottest point) only reaches up to about 1500̊ F. A torch is going to be even less than this (about 1250̊ F), and a candle (1000̊ F) even less so.

Lead sheets, which have a low melting point (about 650̊ F), would be much better for creating seals around things (and have the added advantage of blocking almost all detect spells), or for use a solder for copper.

But then one also has to consider the flash point for things like paper (451̊ F), where they just burst into flames. If you heat a copper tube around a scroll to seal it, you're likely to end up with a tube full of ash.

Characters hauling around block and tackle, ten foot poles, crowbars, pick and shovel, etc. are implausible to me. Besides the sheer weight of all that heavy equipment, they are all also large, bulky and difficult to put in a pack. If my characters have low str the crowbar and grappling hook are the first things to go from my standard load.

Someone doesn't know how to play the game.

Pair of Horses: 150 GP
Wagon: 35 GP
Four Teamsters for a Week: 8.4 GP
Never having to carry your own gear again? PRICELESS

I'm working on some houserules, and I'm looking at the d20PFSRD equipment list and finding it a bit...excessive. So, which items do you think are absolutely critical to any adventurer? Are there items listed that you can't even imagine a use for? Has anyone ever actually needed to buy a basket or a block and tackle?

I've never needed a basket, but I can think of times they'd be useful -- Kingmaker has a side-quest that involves gathering turnips for example, and a basket would be useful for that.

As a player I've used a block and tackle many, many times. They're useful for opening stone caskets/coffins, so that you can stand back ten feet and not get grabbed by the undead thing inside as soon as you slide the lid off.

It's also really useful to have two block and tackles and plenty of rope, because if you set them up correctly you can make it possible to lift really heavy things - I once had a DM put a gold statue in a dungeon, and he expected that we'd have to leave it behind because it weighed about 1500 pounds. When I showed him that we could lift that, lower it on a sledge, and drag it out of the dungeon he really freaked out. We we're fourth level and had just netted ourselves about 75,000 GP.

Personally I think the most unsung champion of standard equipment is the Iron Piton and Hammer. Useful for everything from making your own ladder to casting Fighter Lock on a door. What's Fighter Lock? It's the non-magical version of Arcane Lock, where you pound a piton into the door frame and wedge the door shut.

The most inexplicable piece of equipment? A water clock. Why? And so expensive!

When I make a character, I rarely start with all that equipment. My standard starting package of equipment is simple: Backpack (bedroll, large sacks (2), trail rations (3 days), waterskin), Belt Pouch (excess starting gold).

Now I research online, reach out to gamers online (and even play online sometimes), rarely have to worry about something being out-of-stock, and get things at a great price.

I really don't understand the need for brick-and-mortor stores. /end sidetrack

I like being able to browse books, and I don't mean browse titles. There are many paizo books I only bought because I had a chance to look through them and found something not mentioned in reviews or ads. I never would have bought the map tiles, item cards and flip-mats if I hadn't seen them in the store first. And when it comes to 3PP in general, in-store browsing makes a lot more sales with me than online ever has -- this is especially true with adventures, where sometimes reading a single encounter write-up is enough to get me to put money down, despite a poor cover pitch.

My FLGS also provides space for hosting games, which is a major plus for some people (my apartment, for example, is way too small to host a game). The bulletin board -- only two feet from the Pathfinder stuff -- is a way to find new players and games that online postings don't reach. For example, I've posted about looking for a game or running a game here in Gamer Connection and had much, much less success than through in-store postings. It also provides a nice neutral ground to meet and greet prospective new players and sound them out -- people you meet off the internet aren't always people you just want showing up at your door.

And frankly, I don't like doing a lot of research about gaming products. It's tedious trying to keep up on what's coming out. I like that when I go into my local game store the manager, Tim, knows what I play and will tell me when a new product has come out. Plus they have a new releases section where I find out about new stuff I've never even heard of. I like that.

ETA: Oh, and check out my thread, "Friendliest Local Gaming Store," in the Gamer Talk forum and find out why my FLGS just earned lifetime loyalty, no matter how sweet paizo makes the subscriptions.

Writer? This guy needs to man up and stop living off of his wife. Holy cow, he's honestly the worst of the bunch - at least the others have jobs. I only have seen half of the movie so far, but every time he comes on camera, we find out more and more what a slacker he is - turns out his wife is actually the manager of the apartment complex, AND she's holding down an outside job? While he what? Plays video games and prioritizes his book over actually contributing to his family?

Of course if the genders were reversed no one would bat an eye. Wife living off her husband's work while focusing on her novel rather than getting a job? Move along, nothing to see here...

-----

As for the movie, I thought it was a pretty standard hit piece on gamers. Moral of the story: Hah hah, gamers are losers. Let's point at them and laugh.

What you want is something like this. It's a large binder that has twelve removable rods. You slip the magazine or book in so that the rod lies along the page fold (where you can see the staples), and it holds it in place while still being readable. Libraries use them to store monthly magazines a year at a time.

They would be perfect for storing Pathfinder Companions and similar sized staple-bound books.

Still rather buy it all through my FLGS and support local gaming. The little tag may be cool for bragging rights (though not really), but I like having a gaming store in my city, and that doesn't happen when everyone buys online.

This morning I headed down to my car like I do every morning, ready to drive to work. When I climbed in my seat I noticed something was off immediately - the seat had been adjusted. I looked down at my change tray and it was empty. Someone with grubby fingers had been in my car.

Then I remember that I had left a box with all of my paints and modeling supplies in the backseat. I turned and looked and my heart broke a little bit. It was gone. Stolen. Over a thousand dollars worth of paint. No resale value, no reason to steal it, but stolen all the same. I just about cried. I can't even think about replacing the hundreds of bottles of paint I lost, let alone the fifty or so brushes, the coils of green and brown stuff, the diamond files and jeweler's saw. I just don't have the money right now.

After work I went down to my FLGS, Gary's Games in Greenwood (Seattle) to pick up some paizo stuff. Knowing he'd feel my pain, I told Tim (the manager) about the theft while he rang me up. And of course he's like "That's awful." All I was looking for, a little commiseration.

Then he tells me that his plan for the weekend was to take down the old display of Reaper Pro Paints that takes up too much wallspace for a mostly discontinued line, and that he was going to get rid of the smattering of paints that were left. And he invited me to take whatever I wanted, completely free of charge.

It was only a dozen or so pots of paint, and some pretty funky colors to boot (Gnoll Flesh? Wut?), but who cares? It was the nicest thing a game store owner has ever done for me, and it took what was shaping up to be a bad day and turned it right around.

So I'm just posting this to let you all know that if you're in the Seattle area and thinking about buying some RPG stuff, try checking out Gary's Games. They aren't just a friendly local gaming store, they're the friendliest local gaming store.

I should clarify that I understand different companies, different structures and all that. But sometimes, when the big guy on the block has problems, others do too.

Well, remember that WOTC is owned by Hasbro. Layoffs at WOTC don't necessarily mean the company is in any kind of financial trouble or has "problems." The way modern corporate culture works, these big companies just lay people off to temporarily boost profits. There's no sense of loyalty to employees any more, and people are just seen as disposable cogs.

I would use Mystara in preference to all other campaign settings, simply because it was my first, is still my favorite, and all the others (even Golarion) just seem like rehashes of Mystara.

All I need for a campaign is Darokin, Minrothad, Glantri, Thar and the Shadowlands.

Fantasy roleplaying games have long drawn their monstrous material from myths and legends, folklore and literature. It may seem that cinema, a relatively new art-form, has been neglected. But Hollywood culture has done much to shape our perceptions of popular monsters. Vampires weren't killed by sunlight until Nosferatu, and the magical combination of werewolves, silver and the full moon was formulated by Universal Pictures in the 1940s. Where would zombies be without Night of the Living Dead? Would carnivorous oozes exist without The Blob?

The monsters in Creature Codex Vol. 3: It Came from the Silver Screen! draw inspiration from the creature features of the 1950s through 1970. Within its pages you'll find five monsters and two templates representing everything from giant animals to alien menaces and weird mutants. And, as always, Demiurge Press is committed to presenting top quality art and editing.

Coming soon!

This sounds awesome, thanks for telling me about it!

You know what makes human's the first tier choice?

Liberal use of mobs of peasants with pitchforks and torches.

Human dominated world + rampant racism = more human PCs.

I really loathe punny names and generally won't allow players to use them (they can really destroy the game for me), but I had a player who slipped a good one by me.

He was playing an Aventi (aquatic human) Cleric who worshiped the primal force of the elemental plane of water. His name was Seamar. I thought that it sounded cool (still do, in fact). We were several sessions in before the player explained to me that "Mar" is Spanish for "Sea." So his name was "Sea Sea."

The "riddle of steel" pretty much sums up the difference between Movie Conan and Book Conan. Movie Conan is stupid, Book Conan is brilliant. Witness these answers to the question of the meaning of life:

Movie Conan: "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

Book Conan: "I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

Give me a Conan who can make a speech like that, and I'll be happy.

HERO System.

Hyped as a game system in which you can run any campaign setting, any genre, with any character you want. There are no limits to what the HERO System can do, and it doesn't cheat by making GM handwaving a major component of the rules to achieve that.

Derided as a math intensive, incredibly fiddly system with an almost impossibly steep learning curve which guarantees almost everyone who plays it is playing it wrong.

All of that is true. It can do anything, and it will drive you bonkers trying to get it to do what you want it to.

I'm not particularly excited. The apparent focus on Eastern monsters leaves me cold. I just don't find Eastern creatures all that interesting, and they're hard to use As Is in very eurocentric games (which is what I tend to run).

The inclusion of a lot of "international monsters" doesn't do much for me either, since creatures culled from less well-known mythological sources tend to not elicit the same reaction from players that things like dragons, chimera and griffons do. A lot most of the good monsters from myth have already been raided for addition to the game as well, so what's left can be pretty funky and hard to use (heck, I still haven't figured out what swanmays are for).

Also, a lot of the time they're weirdly specific because they mostly exist as boogey-men to scare children into avoiding dangerous behavior, or from morality tales and fables meant to impart morals. Like the Kappa, which isn't so much a creature fought by heroes of Japanese legend as it is a convenient way of explaining to children why they shouldn't play down by the side of the lake (where they might drown).

A lot of these creatures just don't translate all that well into heroic gaming. A kappa becomes just another humanoid with 1 HD and the aquatic template. Unless they keep the head-bowl thing, in which case its a humanoid with 1 HD and the aquatic template that is ridiculously easy to defeat.

DM: "A kappa attacks you!"
Player: "I trip the Kappa."
DM: "Oh. Huh. It dies."
Player: "Kappas suck."

I don't really need stats for a Kappa. If my Kingmaker campaign somehow ends in in Tien (seems...unlikely), I have stats for a goblin, and I have the aquatic simple template. Pow. I have a Kappa.

I'll still pick it up, but I don't expect there to be more than a small handful of things in that excite me. Most of it will be pretty ho-hum. Like slepnir. It's an eight-legged horse. This does nothing for me. Between the pegasus, unicorn and hippogrif I'm pretty much cool on magical horses.

I'd be more excited if they were focusing more energy on expanding the Classic Monsters Revisited series, or if they Bestiary 3 was going to be focused on expy versions of monsters from classic horror films. Give me my xenomorphs, crawlers and graboids. Then I'll get excited.

Reading some of these comments, I think some DM's could use a gentle reminder that the end of the day they wear the Viking Hat and are allowed to say "No." And if the player says "Why not?" you respond "Because you are boring me to tears and making the game no fun for me with your uncreative, abusive, rules lawyering nonsense."

I've never had a problem with players spamming cantrips, but if one of my players decided to solve a problem using something really cheesy and abusive of the rules, I'd just say "No, stop being cheesy." I find that telling a player that their plan abuses the rules and goes against the spirit of the game generally goes a long way.

And if not... you could just house rule that after hours of repeating the same spell over and over, the PC in question has sprained his tongue making him unable to cast anything for 24 hours. That'll teach him.

Or if they're being particularly obnoxious, say their wizard has developed a repetitive stress injury from repeating the same somantic gestures over and over, and now has a 5% arcane spell failure chance on all spells, unless they spend a week icing down their wrist.

----

I also don't get the filling chambers with water with create water thing. What purpose does that serve? You're never going to fill anything fast enough to drown anyone (someone will eventually wonder where all the water is coming from and come investigate), and if you're using it to float someone out of a pit, they're going to spend a lot of time treading water, which means a lot of opportunities to get exhausted and drown.

I don't like the term "demihuman". It reminds me of "negro". Maybe it was innocent back when it was first invented, but it's really just racist.

You should totally write a letter to the National Association for the Advancement of Demihumans. Oh wait, you can't, because demihumans aren't real.

In case someone missed the tone, it was quite sarcastical, since I can't stand racism, even fantasy racism.

::facepalm::

Sometimes I'm just plain embarrassed to be a gamer.

Also, "sarcastical" isn't a word.

do I even want to ask how you know that or what amazing thought processes had to spin for such a detailed description?

I actually just looked up "rust" on Wikipedia and read the article, since I don't really know much about rust. It mentioned that you can protect things from rust by coating them in hydrocarbon oils (such as the various products used to preserve guns) and zinc. Since most metal objects, like armor and weapons, will be well oiled to prevent rust, that's what would be left over after the rust monster rusted everything oxidizable.

The rest was just starting from the idea that a rust monsters physiology is going to be completely alien, since they clearly have no counterpart in nature to compare them to.

If they were "just words," then we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't have writers being insulted by the words. Comparing it to racial slurs might be overkill... but aren't those "just words" as well?

No James, comparing it to racial slurs wouldn't be overkill. It would be so ridiculously absurd that it would cause me to lose serious respect for you, and view you henceforth as a ridiculous and silly person.

Fluff is not the new n-word, and even pretending it could be compared to that sort of thing is hyperbole on a level that we may have to invent a whole new word for hypebole. It's hysteriabole.

Seriously, man, I am actually really offended that you would even pretend to make that comparison. I've seen people get called racial slurs while other people were trying to beat them to death.

And you're going to compare fluff to that? Please, James, COME BACK DOWN TO EARTH. The air is obviously too thin wherever you are.

I'm a writer. Calling someone's writing "fluff" is about the worst insult possible.

Wow, hyperbole much?

Which would you rather hear:

"Your writing is puerile, infantile, juvenile, turgid, overwrought, purple garbage not fit to line the cages of a flock of crows."

OR

"Nice fluff. Can't wait to see more."

Calling all writing in an entire field "fluff"? You're insulting an entire industry.

That's nonsense. The term Fluff has never been intended as an insult to anyone, it's just a term. Everyone in here who is getting their panties in a bunch over it (and that includes Mr. Jacobs) is coming off as more than a little bit silly.

People have been using the fluff/crunch dichotomy to talk about what game designers produce for decades. Suddenly deciding its the "worst insult possible" (::EYEROLL:: SO HARD) doesn't make it so -- it just makes you look ridiculous.

But keeping pounding your head against that wall. I'm sure it will give way any second now.

No way in any of the Nine Hells does a writer want to say, "I write fluff!"

I'm a writer and I take no offense at all to anyone calling my fluff fluff. So looks like you're wrong.

I'm with you DMCal. Sometimes the only thing stopping me from making my campaigns human only is the threat of player revolution.

I don't mind A demihuman in the party. Even two if it's a large party, but when the ratio of humans to demihumans starts to approach 1:1, or goes beyond that and you end up with a party with one human and four or five demihumans, I just get annoyed.

I try to explain to players that even places like Golarion and the Forgotten Realms are still humanocentric, and most villages/small towns are going to be human. Which means your "adventuring party" of a "good" drow, a dragonborn, a warforged, a tiefling and two cat people is going to seem like a roving band of monsters to most peasants, and is not going to be welcome.

Its one thing when a bunch of adventurers show up in town with their one elf friend. That's a curiosity. Its quite another when an alien invasion force shows up claiming they're "just like you, only different."

Gailbraithe wrote:

But you know what they didn't try to do? Save the Spanner. The Spanner is one of those monsters that was so stupid people have literally forgotten it existed. It's a giant stone bridge. That Eats You. As Bill O'Reilly would say: You can't explain that!

Wow, where was the spanner located? I've never seen that one!

It was in the Fiend Folio Appendix for the 2E Monsterous Compendium (MC14).

If you're calling it "fluff," I suspect the only reason it's easy is because it's unimportant for you and you're skipping it so you can get straight to the combat. Which is fine if that's what you like, but it's not my cup of tea.

::facepalm::

So basically, you didn't read my comment at all. The one where I said I generally provide my own fluff.

How about this Kevin: If you need the fluff so bad, I can only suspect its because you're completely creatively bankrupt and are incapable of coming up with your own ideas.

See how rude that was? Take a hint.

For me, stat blocks are basically interchangeable. If I have the statblock for a black dragon, I can use it for pretty much any dragon just by changing the breath weapon, and I can say it's a giant elder star manticore from the red planet and those unable to look behind my screen won't know that I just reskinned a black dragon. Sure, a better tailored statblock is nice, but the reskinning will do for most intents and purposes.

Uh, yeah dude, that's pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. Taking statblocks, removing all of the fluff, and using the statblocks for my own critters.

I like to have the personality profile, ecology, and folklore of a monster at my fingertips. Certainly I make up stuff that isn't listed on the Bestiary page, but I like to have most of it there so I'm not having to look through my folklore collection to figure out what to do with any given monster apart from raw combat.

Gee, I guess I'm just more creative than you then, because I don't need that crutch. ::innocent:::

Vacation time is here, and a buddy of mine and I are thinking about road-tripping up to Seattle for a couple of days.

Are there any shops that are known for their supply of old/out-of-print stuff?

Any can't-miss game stores up there?

Now that American Eagles closed its doors, most of Seattle's gaming stores have shut down or moved outside of town into the suburbs. In Seattle itself the place you want to go is Gary's Games in Greenwood. It has a lot of back stock -- the back room has shelves of 3.5 and earlier D&D stuff, plus old Palladium, White Wolf, and lots of cool rarities show up in there all the time, sometimes at prices that are crazy low - I've picked up awesome, fluff-filled 2E stuff in perfect condition for a buck. They often have grab bags full of old Dragons and Dungeons too, like 10 for $10. The front of the store is fully stocked on paizo stuff, and just about every other game on the market now that they've got Warhammer stuff in again.

Do NOT go to Golden Age Collectibles. They might come up in an internet search for gaming stores, because they carry some RPGs, but since they're in Pike Place you'll pay through the nose for parking only to find they have a selection of 4E stuff, a few other random things, and no backstock at all.

The internets have really hammered LGSs in Seattle. That's why I'm not a paizo subscriber. I buy all my stuff through Gary's Games just to do my part to make sure that Seattle has one decent FLGS with a dedicated gaming area.

I can't see any reason why Dhampir would look like Drow. Vampires look like humans of every ethnicity, looking more or less identical to how they appeared in life, so I would think a Dhampir would share the same general traits as her parents.

Gailbraithe wrote:

Still thought it was more fun than Thor or Pirates 4, the only other movies I've seen this year.

Aw, see NOW you're being crazy. Those movies ROCKED! :)

I thought Pirates 4 was a bunch of really awesome scenes that completely failed to congeal into a decent movie. The whole opening of the movie is a giant mess, and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth through the rest of the film. Though I did really, really love the Spanish Plot Twist at the end though. No one expects the Spanish Plot Twist!

Thor was much better than I expected it to be, but it felt...I dunno. Rushed. Underdeveloped. There was so much to be crammed in, so many characters, that it just felt like nothing got enough time to sink in. I could have used a lot more development on the love story in particular, since that seemed really forced. And more of Sir Anthony Hopkins. His scenes were the best in the movie (excluding the fight with the frost giants, which was EPIC). But mostly I think its just that Thor, the comic and the character, have never been my thing.

Dude is dying of cancer. Play his game.

+1

You've got years ahead of you to play Kingmaker. He wants six months.

This is a dilemma?

De-emphasizing the narrative description in favor of a stat block is a huge problem for any game where you intend to roleplay first and only cut to combat if the diplomacy fails.

This is me looking at you skeptically.

Fluff, flavor, whatever you call it is the less important part of any monster. I can make up my own fluff, and more often than not I do. I think I've ignored and replaced more fluff than I've ever used.

Statblocks are hard to write, and I can't make them up off the top of my head. Fluff is easy.

Oh, and actually anyone who has ever watched Doctor Who and knows what the Nestene Consciousness (and wants to ignore what paizo has already written on these various It's A [blank] And It Eats You creatures) is has a perfect answer to the ecology of all these creatures.

Look at the first image of a mimic.

They are sentient, shape-shifting plastics. They have no true organs, simply being constructed entirely from self-organizing sentient plastic. They feed off the sentience of intelligent beings, off the psychic energy created by the extinguishing of thought, which they capture by enveloping their target and grinding, constricting and generally smushing it to death. And they learn as they feed.

Which is why they hide as all these otherwise ordinary things. They find humans and humanoids generally delicious, and like reptiles, they're lazy hunters. Why go to the food when you can get the food to come to you? Also, they cannot successful reproduce realistic looking organic forms. Disguise itself a chest? Sure. As a person? It would fall so far into the uncanny valley most of its prey would run at first sight.

As for what they poop: technically, everything. They have no need for food, so once the brain has stopped generating psychic death screams, they simply dispose of the remaining corpse wherever it is convenient, or leave it in the spot if they intend to move on to new hunting grounds.

Another addition to the list of monsters-created-to-torture-D&D-players would be the Mimic! A monster has evolved on the basis of adventurers looking for human-constructed receptacles for treasure? Not likely - more likely candidates evolution-wise would be to impersonate a magic item, or gold itself. But no... it's more entertaining for evil GMs to have a treasure chest eat an adventurer who has just fought a hard battle!

D&D is full of monsters like that. It's a time-honored tradition of D&D and one of the things that makes the game great.

The Lurker Above (It's a ceiling that eats you), the Trapper (and a matching floor!), and the Exectioner's Hood (it's a hood. It eats your head.) were all recently revised by paizo into one creature, and they did a fairly decent job of it.

But you know what they didn't try to do? Save the Spanner. The Spanner is one of those monsters that was so stupid people have literally forgotten it existed. It's a giant stone bridge. That Eats You. As Bill O'Reilly would say: You can't explain that!

There's also Stunjelly (It's a wall. That Eats You.), Cloakers (It's a cape. That Eats You.), the goldbug (It's a coin. That Eats You.), and while my desperate need to preserve my sanity says it ain't so, I know I've seen several attempts at It's a Sword. That Eats You.

But the best of them all is the Ragamoffyn. It's a pile of dirty laundry.

THAT EATS YOU!!!

Though I've played the game quite a bit, I've only been the DM with this system a few times. Normally I have ran a series of short games that would rarely take the players beyond 3 or 4 levels from where they started. This, however, will be my first attempt at making a story that will build up to a significant ending that spans many levels.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

If this is your first long term campaign, I would suggest taking a more sandbox approach. Writing out an entire campaign for levels 1 through 20 is extremely difficult (it takes paizo months and an entire team of designers and writers to do one, so consider that), and unless your players are down with playing the campaign as you've written it can turn into a giant nightmare of player vs DM conflict, as the players can feel very railroaded.

I suggest making sure you know your setting, have some vague ideas of plotlines you can throw at your players, and a solid starting adventure that drops some major hooks on them. Then see if they bite, and develop the story as it goes along. You'll find it easier if you just try to stay a few sessions ahead of your players, rather than months ahead of them. It will also prevent you from feeling that burning DM rage that comes with realizing the players have zigged when they were supposed to zag and left you with tons of developed material that will never be used.

I'm about to run my first AP, Kingmaker, and while I bought the first three books (mostly for the kingdom rules, just to see what paizo came up with), I have no intention of buying 4, 5 and 6 until my players are starting 3. I don't mind buying 2 and 3 if they veer off at 1, since I wanted the kingdom rules anyways, but I see no reason to drop $60 on adventure I may never use.

There is no ecology to the rust monster. They are simply the creation of evil DMs/game designers who wanted to see their fighters run away and freak out when they saw them coming.

Gelatinous cubes fall under this category as well. Square shaped see-through monsters? Psht.

Pretty close to the truth. When I was a kid, long before I played D&D, my dad bought me this bag full of cheap plastic Chinese toy monsters to go with my Star Wars figures. This was one of them.

When I got my first copy of the 1E Monster Manual, imagine my surprise to find this weird Chinese toy in the game. Turns out that Gary Gygax had bought this exact same bag of plastic monsters for use as minatures, and declared this weird looking thing a rust monster...and gave it powers to scare fighters into tears.

It wouldn't surprise me if the intellect devourer began as a rust monster toy with the tail and feelers cut off.

Here's a link to someone else's view of the movie for those interested.

Now that's a much better critique than what you're offering. And I agree with a lot of what he says -- but as I said myself, "I can't think of anything better than the ending the Abrams came up with, at least not without rewriting the movie up to that point..."

I'm not sure how saying that I liked the movie in general but this one feature just didn't click for me is being "hopelessly nitpicky". I could suggest that not considering if something is the best thing that could of been done is being "hopelessly fanboyee", but I would think that would be a silly thing to suggest.

I just think its strange that you forgive the movie for everything leading up to that scene, but not that scene itself. I mean that review you linked to, that guy had issues with the entire film. Why are you so inconsistent?

I mean, the train crash scene is entirely implausible (maybe one person could have survived being caught in that mess, but everyone? Even Woodward? I'll bet the engineer on the train survived too, we just never saw him), and the movie stays on about the same level of ridiculous throughout. Like everything coming out of Hollywood these days, its far more style than substance, with a lot of special effects crowding out story development.

Still thought it was more fun than Thor or Pirates 4, the only other movies I've seen this year.

The spellbooks are total treasure porn.

+1

As someone who spends a lot more time DMing than playing, I found my favorite parts of UM to be the spellbooks and the spellblights. Two things I can give my players, one which makes them happy, one that makes me happy. I only wish there was a spellblight that turned the afflicted wizard into a walking wand of wonder. Because that's always good for a laugh.

As a player, I liked a lot of the spells and the Rakshasa bloodline, both for its flavor, its awesome deception capacity, and its feat list (hello gish!). Oathbound paladins also rock, as I like anything that gives the paladin a broader palate of role-playing options.

And the Sanguinary wildblooded replacement power pretty much guarantees my next character will be a Dhampir Sorcerer (Undead/Sanguinary) so I can run around drinking the blood of my enemies. nom nom nom.

Thanks Jason! I'm glad someone got it.

Gailbraithe responded that such suggestions where not just not better than the ending put in the movie but were worse. And yet he doesn't suggest anything better than my suggestions or the movie's.

I can't think of anything better than the ending the Abrams came up with, at least not without rewriting the movie up to that point and significantly changing the theme. I suppose they could have just left that part of that scene out entirely, and if likely wouldn't have made much difference, but I think it's pretty silly to claim it ruins the ending. And if that's your only issue with the ending, then I'd say you're being hopelessly nitpicky.

I also take issue with your phrasing.

Cast Gate. Orient the gate on the horizontal, twenty feet wide. Under the wizard. Allow gravity to do its thing.

Pick someplace nice. The negative elemental plane is pleasant, from what I hear.

Though, I have to say, the very nature of the duel invalidates it. This will determine nothing, because the characters are designed for the battle.

And frankly, with the amount of options available to a pathfinder character, the age old wizard vs cleric debate is pointless. There is no such thing as a "a wizard" or "a cleric." That's a relic of 1E, Basic and 2E, when the paucity of character options meant that (mechanically at least) all characters of a certain level were pretty much the same.

Being able to ignore an ability score is a powerful thing, IMHO. I always took force of personality for my 3.5 sorcerers. It allowed them to use charisma instead of wisdom for will saves. That freed gold up for other things, and I could take the wisdom, and put it into another ability score.

Huh. I can't say I ever saw anyone do that in my 3.5 campaigns, but then again in all the time I DM'd 3.5, I'm pretty sure there was a whopping total of 1 sorcerer. Lot of bards though, and no one ever picked FOP.

Also, this doesn't affect Will Saves, so I'm not sure if it compares to FOP.

Rust monsters don't poop - they don't even have an anus. They are almost perfectly efficient at metabolizing oxidized metals, and have no water content in their bodies. The tiny amounts of residual non-ferrous material that remains in the oxidized pile created by the rust monsters rusting ability take two forms: hydrocarbons from oils and zinc.

These hydrocarbon oils are stored in the body and lubricate the rust monsters internal functions (since they have no water in their bodies), such as muscles. These oils are drawn in a layer of specialized organs surrounding the stomach, and begin continuously working their way out of the creature's body. Eventually they are "sweated" out of the creatures pores, giving the creature's skin a waxy sheen.

Meanwhile a second set of organs form ducts leading from the stomach to small (almost microscopic) vents along the creature's lateral lines. If you were to run your finger along this line, you would pick up a waxy, white residue. This is a combination of zinc and the oils mentioned above.

This material, whitewax, is perhaps the finest sunblock in the world, but is produced in such small quantities that its harvest for commercial purposes is nearly impracticable. A "farm" of 50 rust monsters would produce a bottle with 5 uses every year, and the cost of feeding the creatures would make that bottle worth about 5000 gp. A single application of whitewax provides the benefits of an endure elements spell (hot environments only) for 24 hours, or until washed off with alcohol (whichever comes first).

Hey, you're entitled to your beliefs, man. If you believe squirrels talk to you and the homeless are trying to eat you, fine. If it really bothers you that much to be wrong, and you feel like lashing out about amputation, then go right ahead.

How am I wrong? Are you seriously claiming that I am wrong about what I believe? Because that would be laughable.

I mean what the deuce, man? You say I'm entitled to my beliefs, but apparently I'm not entitled to know what they are? How does that make any kind of sense to you?

I would allow it to use the wisdom modifier in place of the charisma modifier, but not add the skills as class skills also, but I do like it, and I will give it a trial run in my next campaign.

I was thinking that the Wisdom for Charisma swap was not enough oomph for the price of a feat, and it needed a little extra. The granted power of the Inquistor's Conversion Inquistion, Charm of Wisdom, allows a swap of Wisdom for Charisma for Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate...and I don't think an Inquistion (or Domain) granted power is the equivalent of a feat in value. So I added the bonus class skills to balance it out (since many traits grant bonus class skills, I thought it was equal to about half a feat).

Now I'm thinking maybe it should just be a trait, rather than a full-blown feat. Like so:

Words of Wisdom: The master of your temple had a gift for disarming riddles and comments, and you have learned to express your insights in the same manner. You use your Wisdom modifier instead of your Charisma modifier when making Bluff and Diplomacy checks.

You know what would be cool? Monastic Traits. To go along with Regional, Social, Combat, etc. A small list, maybe eight to ten items, of traits specifically for monks.

(Suddenly I really want to watch 36th Chamber of Shaolin again. Best monk training sequence ever, it's like 70% of the movie and crazy detailed about how monks are made.)

Here's some ideas off the top of my head:
Obstacle Runner: The master of your temple preferred training on elaborate obstacle courses. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Acrobatic or Climb.

Esoteric Teachings: Your temple was more focused on contemplation of the arcane than most. Choose Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, or Use Magic Device. This skill is always a class skill for you.

Arduous Training: Your teacher believed that the body must be broken completely before it can be remade, and as a result of this arduous training you gain a +1 trait bonus to Fortitude saves.

Temple of Nature: Your master believed in complete harmony with nature, and his "school" was the wilderness itself. You gain a +1 trait bonus to Knowledge (nature) or Survival, and this skill is always a class skill for you.

If anyone else has any cool ideas, let's hear them.

When I think of Karl Urban, I always think of where I saw him first: Xena: Warrior Princess. He played both Cupid and Julius Ceaser.

His Cupid was, amusingly, actually kinda badass. Basically Hawk-Man with a bow. You could do him as a Strix Fighter with the Archer archetype, and then give him a quiver full of +1 arrows that cast either reckless infatuation or unadulterated loathing, as the archer wishes.

PS: The "cleric" character is Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. -1 nerd point for you.

Neil Spicer wrote:

Far better to leave it open-ended. Let the authors find inspiration (in Golarion) in whatever ways they can.

Just my two cents,
--Neil

I Am No Publisher, but as someone who browses bookshops it seems to me that a lot of books which are compilations of stories by different authors tend to have a linking theme - E.G. 'vampire stories' or 'what if? Sherlock Holmes' or 'fantasy romance'.

Any collection of short stories set in Golarion will automatically have a linking theme. That theme? Golarion.

Gailbraithe wrote:

pres man wrote:

I believe in growth and healing, you obviously believe in amputation.

::eyeroll::

Yeah, dude, you "nailed" it.

When you are the only one with an opinion that differs from everyone else...maybe you're wrong?.

Is everyone of the opinion that I believe in "amputation?" Because that's what I'm responding to. Pres man's claim that I believe in "amputation," which is just a false dichotomy he's created to taint my position and make his look better.

And if it is the case that "everyone" believes that I believe in "amputation," then "everyone" is pretty ****ing stupid. I think the only person in the world qualified to state authoritatively what I believe is me, and if you care to disagree, you can go take a long walk off a short pier.

I slept in til 1:30 today (I think I'm coming down with something, I feel icky), then I took my dog to the park, and finally went down to my FLGS. Previous years they still had Free RPG Day stuff the day after Free RPG Day.

Today it was all gone twenty minutes after they opened.

So, uh, no We Be Goblins for me. :(

You have a good point. But considering that 18 seconds is a very short amount of time in a non combat situations it could become annoying to have it on continually. I see how the color coded thing would not work. I guess it could be like sensing the world on a totally different spectrum. The part that is not clear is what sense is used to detect the magical auras.

It appears to be a sixth sense of some kind, with a visual component as well. A sixth sense because one can detect magic through solid objects -- such as a magic ring inside a wooden chest, or in someone's pocket; but with a visual component -- since you must have line of sight to distinguish the nature, but not strength, of an aura.

It seems highly unlikely to me that magical auras would glow different colors for different schools of magic. If we look at the spell's description, we can see why:

You detect magical auras. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.

1st Round: Presence or absence of magical auras.

2nd Round: Number of different magical auras and the power of the most potent aura.

3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft).

If magical effects of different schools were color coded for your convenience, then it hardly seems likely that one would have to spend a good 18 seconds concentrating on an object before recognizing its color. Also, a DC 15+ check is awfully high for recognizing a color.

"Hi. I'm a first level wizard with a 12 Int and 1 rank in Spellcraft, and I only have a 50% chance of distinguishing a blue cantrip from a red cantrip."

If magical auras glow in different colors, then recognizing the originating school of magic should be automatic. With only nine possible options it shouldn't require any real effort to distinguish different auras. So I assume that they do not glow different colors.

You ever watch Fringe? You know Olivia's ability to recognize objects and people from the Alternate Universe? That's pretty much how I envision detect magic. Things don't glow so much as they shimmer or glimmer.

Here's a clip from the show where Olivia first sees Peter after her ability has been reactivated (having been dormant since she was a child): Olivia sees Peter's glimmer.